Author
Topic: Z-Wave vs X10? (Read 7194 times)

OK, I've spent a week getting my head around as much of LMCE as I can, I've set up a couple of MDs (using lightweight orbiter UI, but I've ordered a graphics card that will hopefully let me use UI2), got a USB remote working and media playing in different rooms. I'm now ready to dip my toe in the Home Automation water. I've read the wiki and the forum entries and browsed a couple of UK home automation etailers (http://www.letsautomate.com and http://www.uk-automation.co.uk) and still can't figure out which way to go. Here is what I do know:

X10 devices are cheaper, but for security sensors you need wireless as well as mains electrical. This means you need a standard CM10/11 serial interface for the computer to control the X10 stuff plus something to grab the wireless signals and translate them to the electrical wires to get to the computer like TM571. The combined CM15 device does both but seems to not be stable according to what I have read on the forums. It also looks like X10 is harder to setup and signals can be lost when sending across mains electrical. Is X10 that hard to setup?

Z-Wave devices seem to be more expensive but easier to setup, but I can't figure out what the minimal starting point is. The UK home automation sites suggest that just having a PC serial to Z-wave interface like ZWave ZCU201 (like this http://www.letsautomate.com/12434.cfm?) will also need a Z-wave remote control (like thishttp://www.letsautomate.com/11109.cfm?) in order to setup all the devices like a motion or door sensor. But reading the wiki it sounds like I can get by with just a Z-Wave USB stick like this http://www.letsautomate.com/12799.cfm? to setup all the z-wave devices and have the LMCE PC control them, is that right?

If someone can enlighten me I'll gladly try it out then write a wiki entry on easy entry to LMCE home automation.

OK, I've spent a week getting my head around as much of LinuxMCE as I can, I've set up a couple of MDs (using lightweight orbiter UI, but I've ordered a graphics card that will hopefully let me use UI2), got a USB remote working and media playing in different rooms. I'm now ready to dip my toe in the Home Automation water. I've read the wiki and the forum entries and browsed a couple of UK home automation etailers (http://www.letsautomate.com and http://www.uk-automation.co.uk) and still can't figure out which way to go. Here is what I do know:

X10 devices are cheaper, but for security sensors you need wireless as well as mains electrical. This means you need a standard CM10/11 serial interface for the computer to control the X10 stuff plus something to grab the wireless signals and translate them to the electrical wires to get to the computer like TM571. The combined CM15 device does both but seems to not be stable according to what I have read on the forums. It also looks like X10 is harder to setup and signals can be lost when sending across mains electrical. Is X10 that hard to setup?

Z-Wave devices seem to be more expensive but easier to setup, but I can't figure out what the minimal starting point is. The UK home automation sites suggest that just having a PC serial to Z-wave interface like ZWave ZCU201 (like this http://www.letsautomate.com/12434.cfm?) will also need a Z-wave remote control (like thishttp://www.letsautomate.com/11109.cfm?) in order to setup all the devices like a motion or door sensor. But reading the wiki it sounds like I can get by with just a Z-Wave USB stick like this http://www.letsautomate.com/12799.cfm? to setup all the z-wave devices and have the LinuxMCE PC control them, is that right?

If someone can enlighten me I'll gladly try it out then write a wiki entry on easy entry to LinuxMCE home automation.

cheers,Blaine

I i'd thought i'd sure share some noobie thoughts as I have bought kit from those sites you mentioned. I have picked Z-Wave for similar reasons and have installed 6 Z-Wave light switches (ZDW232) and am using the Aeon Labs Z-Wave Stick.

Its easy with the stick - you just press the button on the stick wait for a flashing blue light and press the light switch to include it. Then when plugged into your LinuxMCE it will detect all lights included, and go through a lighting wizard to name and locate them.

Once you have done that you can turn them on and off ! no need for a separate controller.

I'm actually trying to figure out how to control using Perl, or the command line. I've found a Ruby gem (derailed-rhouse) but cant seem to get it working . Am looking into the RPC-plugin too for control over HTTP. As this is all new, and my programming skills (mainly Java, Perl) are a bit rusty, all this is abit steep.!

Im actually tempted to try out X10 with MisterHouse as it is based around Perl, I need to be control a heater for a project i am working on.

They way I see it , as that nowadays LinuxMCE is more associated with Z-Wave as it has the driver already built in - and for free!

OK, I've spent a week getting my head around as much of LinuxMCE as I can, I've set up a couple of MDs (using lightweight orbiter UI, but I've ordered a graphics card that will hopefully let me use UI2), got a USB remote working and media playing in different rooms. I'm now ready to dip my toe in the Home Automation water. I've read the wiki and the forum entries and browsed a couple of UK home automation etailers (http://www.letsautomate.com and http://www.uk-automation.co.uk) and still can't figure out which way to go. Here is what I do know:

X10 devices are cheaper, but for security sensors you need wireless as well as mains electrical. This means you need a standard CM10/11 serial interface for the computer to control the X10 stuff plus something to grab the wireless signals and translate them to the electrical wires to get to the computer like TM571. The combined CM15 device does both but seems to not be stable according to what I have read on the forums. It also looks like X10 is harder to setup and signals can be lost when sending across mains electrical. Is X10 that hard to setup?

Z-Wave devices seem to be more expensive but easier to setup, but I can't figure out what the minimal starting point is. The UK home automation sites suggest that just having a PC serial to Z-wave interface like ZWave ZCU201 (like this http://www.letsautomate.com/12434.cfm?) will also need a Z-wave remote control (like thishttp://www.letsautomate.com/11109.cfm?) in order to setup all the devices like a motion or door sensor. But reading the wiki it sounds like I can get by with just a Z-Wave USB stick like this http://www.letsautomate.com/12799.cfm? to setup all the z-wave devices and have the LinuxMCE PC control them, is that right?

If someone can enlighten me I'll gladly try it out then write a wiki entry on easy entry to LinuxMCE home automation.

cheers,Blaine

It is true that the two methods have their pros and cons.... so why not use both? I would say that z-wave is a good place to start though, for the reasons you mention. If you find something later that you really want that only works on X10, then look at adding X10 capability. Everything is beautifully intertwined - your security system can be spread across both z-wave and X10 networks for example, and the various elements will still be able to interact with eachother.

FYI I have the Aeon labs/MCV stick myself, and it works very well in my experience.

when you use the aeon labs stick instead of a "regular" stick/remote combo, you need to manually do the associations for sensors. Otherwise you will not get wake up/sensor tripped events and such

Hi hari - could you elaborate further as your comment is ringing bells with me now - I never got my HSM-100 to work i.e. trip with motion events to turn on lights - how i can i manually do the associations??

when you use the aeon labs stick instead of a "regular" stick/remote combo, you need to manually do the associations for sensors. Otherwise you will not get wake up/sensor tripped events and such

Hi hari - could you elaborate further as your comment is ringing bells with me now - I never got my HSM-100 to work i.e. trip with motion events to turn on lights - how i can i manually do the associations??

thanks,

Bells are also ringing here - is this why the lights don't automatically dim when I insert a DVD, and had to add the event myself? Is it specifically "events" that you are talking about hari?

when you use the aeon labs stick instead of a "regular" stick/remote combo, you need to manually do the associations for sensors. Otherwise you will not get wake up/sensor tripped events and such

Hi hari - could you elaborate further as your comment is ringing bells with me now - I never got my HSM-100 to work i.e. trip with motion events to turn on lights - how i can i manually do the associations??

OK, I bought an Aeon USB Z-Wave Stick and a ZIR010 Z-Wave PIR. Following the instructions in the wiki, I put the batteries in the PIR, pressed the button on the stick, blue light started blinking, pressed the bind button on the PIR, blue light went solid for a while, then back to blinking. So I assume the PIR is now bound to the stick. I took the stick to the core and plugged it in, it was recognized and the wizard did all kinds of magic and asked me to name the sensor but it also put up a message about an error.

In the Security Wizard, the only active sensors that show up are the IP cameras.

Can anyone tell me how I tell if the sensor is really added and working and how I can get it to appear as a sensor in the security wizard so I can set a security breach condition when the sensor trips while the security setting is armed?

it is also not a child device of the z-wave interface.. did you tweak anything manually or is this all the work of the wizard?

The wizard did leave it as a Datagrid pluging, but I when I saw the "Device Controlled by" was not set to anything I did change it thinking the wizard had not set it (it was a child of the Z-wave controller before that).

Should I delete this sensor, the Z-Wave device and its 3 children and try plugging in the stick again?

So I deleted the orphan generic sensor, then all the children of Z-Wave, then Z-Wave itself, look at the device tree to make sure they were all gone, rebooted, plugged in the stick again and the wizard seemed to just do its thing without complaining (although it seemed to add the PIR as a lighting controller, possibly becuase that is the default mode for this PIR). Everything looks mostly sensible and I can see a Generic Sensor in the right place, but now there are two:

and two Z-Wave controllers. One sensor has the same device number as the one I deleted, so perhaps it didn't really delete (and a controller as well)? Should I perhaps delete the lower (original) numbered generic sensor?

Assuming this is now as it is supposed to look and I can figure out which of the sensors is really my PIR, how do I configure it as a security PIR, that is, to trigger a security alert when the security status is armed? I can see the matrix in the Wizard->Security->Active Sensors page and I can see I can set a Sensor to "Security", which I assume means that in the given mode when the sensor triggers it generates a "Security" event, but how do I specify what to do when that event happens?

Can anyone out there give me a clue as to how to test if my Z-Wave PIR is working? Just a simple test to see if I can trigger an event with the PIR detects movement would be great...

thanks,Blaine

Create an association between a light (or group of lights) and your PIR using an inclusion controller. Wait for the PIR to come our of configuration mode and then test to see if it triggers the associated light to 'On' when it detects motion and also whether it sends an 'Off' to the associated light(s) when it reverts back to its 'un-triggered' state.

If the above works you can then use the Respond to Events Wizard (Click 'Respond to Events' in the Wizard menu in the lefh hand margin of the Web Admin) to setup a custom Event handler - eg no motion in Room after say 5 minutes power off all MD's, TV's, Amplifiers etc etc & Lights.

Thanks for the reply Andrew. Sadly, I don't have any lighting controllers yet as I wanted to make sure I could get on with Z-Wave before investing in lots of kit. I have the Zeon stick with built-in inclusion conroller and I'm pretty sure it has sucessfully associated with the PIR (a HomePro ZIR 010). I'm just not sure that LMCE getting anything from the PIR. I looked at the wiki page for this PIR http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/ACT_Homepro_ZIR010 and it talks about setting the device configuration with parameter #17 but I can't tell how to set the parameter, nor do I know what groups it is talking about when it says the PIR sends ON/OFF, UPDATE, or alarm to group 1, 2, or 3. Can you enlighten me? I've looked in /var/log/pluto/170_ZWave.log and I see this: